4.1 Jago in Love

Escaping the shadowy presence of the mysterious Professor Claudius Dark, Jago, Litefoot and Leela take a holiday to Brighton. There, Jago meets and falls for music hall singer Abigail Woburn, a relationship that threatens to split the infernal investigators apart, as dark forces gather on the beach…

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Styre
on June 29, 2017 at 3:40 PM

JAGO & LITEFOOT: JAGO IN LOVE

The fourth Jago & Litefoot series starts with “Jago in Love,” a story by Nigel Fairs that does exactly what it says on the tin. The characters visit Brighton for a holiday, and while there, Jago meets an actress who is basically his dream partner. While he romances her, Litefoot and Leela become involved with a man who lost his fiancée. That spirals out of control due to a time distortion until Litefoot’s soul is imprisoned in a mirror and the fiancée is inside his body. The focus of the story is on Jago, as the title implies; the Litefoot plot doesn’t go anywhere interesting. But Jago and Abigail (Elizabeth Counsell) are a delight: Christopher Benjamin in particular throws everything into his portrayal of the smitten impresario. It’s very mannered and polite, of course, and you believe him entirely when he decides to propose marriage. The problem is that Abigail is faking it, and Fairs writes her in a way that makes her trickery incredibly obvious. So while Jago’s emotions feel honest, the story also makes him look like a gullible fool – and while Jago’s impulsiveness often gets him into trouble, he’s absolutely not an idiot. It’s great, in the end, to hear him choose his friends over his new love, but I wish it wouldn’t have felt quite so inevitable. “Jago in Love” isn’t a bad opener, but I’ve heard better.